Vicki Quade is going to Heaven.
We first met back in the mid-nineties when we both had theatrical shows playing the same theatre. Each of our plays dealt nostalgically with our Irish Catholic experiences. But Vicki’s play had legs, long-running legs.
Vicki was one of the creators of the international hit comedy LATE NIGHT CATECHISM. Her website says: “Call it Loretta Young meets Carol Burnett. This is part catechism class, part stand-up routine. It’s an interactive comedy, one of the longest running shows in Chicago and U.S. theater history. The New York Times calls it, "hilarious, well-written and inspired."
Jeffrey Lyons from TV’s Sneak Previews calls Late Nite Catechism "something to savor and enjoy....one of the most intimate, rewarding shows in town.
"You, the audience member, are part of Sister’s class. She’ll take you back to the days of the Latin Mass, meatless Fridays, and remind you about that good old ruler across the knuckles!"
Vicki Quade as Mrs. O'Brien in Golden Rule
Take it from me, it’s very funny stuff, especially if you grew up being taught by nuns, like I did and got smacked regularly in class growing up Catholic. As my mom would tell me, “It’s good for you to get cracked once in a while!”
Vicki has since created her own production company Nuns4Fun Entertainment. She has developed a line of Bingo comedies including Bible Bingo; An Act of Charity in two acts, along with Christmas Bingo: It’s a Ho-Ho Holy Night. She’s also added a Halloween show called Holy Ghost Bingo and a Lenten comedy called Easter Bunny Bingo, and now she has a Valentine Bingo in her series.
She has cornered the live theatrical market for Catholic nostalgia, but there is something more in Vicki’s bag of tricks. Dare I call it “soul”?
Over the years over twenty actresses have played the lead Sister in Vicki’s comedies, including herself, and she has discovered a unique yearning carried by our generation for those saints in wimples that shaped our families hopes and dreams.
She tells me, “Nuns love our shows. You get to play bingo and win goofy prizes!”
Born in Chicago, and a long-time journalist and columnist before taking on her theatrical veil, Vicki has a keen insight into the latter day circumstances of nuns in America. It’s become more of a calling than just her career.
By now she knows quite a bit about sisterhood and how and why young women were drawn to their vocations. Back in the day families were much larger and college was expensive and in many instances, “If the family didn’t have the money, the girls went into the convent where they were educated.”
Vicki has been enlightened many times by her own audiences.
“I get hired by a high school out in the middle of nowhere. So they want to put a roof on the church or something so they bring me out there.
"So a few years ago I get a gig out in Ladysmith, Wisconsin…and I’m doing Christmas Bingo, which is really a fun show. And I look out and maybe the second, third row and there’s a really bedraggled woman, and next to her is a boy, maybe 10. And at intermission I go out to say hi to the people, and this woman starts chasing me.
She says, “Miss…Miss…please please please.” And I stopped and she said ‘I just want to say thank you. My husband died earlier this year. He was a truck driver…and he pulled off the side of the road and died.” And she said, “It has been really rough on my son. This is the first time my son has laughed in a year!”
“So then I thought this is why I came here. This is why they called me, right?”
When folks ask Vicki how much longer she will be doing her shows, she says, “Until they stop laughing, until they stop wanting it, ya’ know?”
Vicki has used her religious comedies to promote the retirement plight of nuns in America. It’s not like nuns have social security or IRAs. She takes up collections for the Sisters of Mercy, the Benedictine Sisters, the School Sisters of St. Joseph, Dominicans and many more. She has used her shows to raise more than $4 million in donations for various orders of religious sisters.
What did I tell you? She’s definitely going to heaven.
But, in the meantime, check out her upcoming gigs at https://nuns4fun.com/
She has plenty of holiday gigs booked to make it a ho ho holy Christmas!
